Instead of trying to create a single, static firmware, OpenWrt provides a fully writable filesystem with package management. This frees you from the application selection and configuration provided by the vendor and allows you to customize the device through the use of packages to suit any application. For developer, OpenWrt is the framework to build an application without having to build a complete firmware around it; for users this means the ability for full customization, to use the device in ways never envisioned.

* Filesystem improvements - Added support for sysupgrade on NAND-flash - Added support for filesystem snapshot and rollback - Rewritten mounting system in C for rootfs and block devices

* UCI configuration improvements - Support for testing configuration and rollback to working last working state - Unified change trigger system to restart services on-demand - Added a data validation layer

* Networking improvements - Netifd now handles setup and configuration reload of wireless interfaces - Added reworked event support to allow obsoleting network hotplug-scripts - Added support for dynamic firewall rules and zones - Added support for transparent multicast to unicast translation for bridges - Various other fixes and improvements

Package feed reorganizationFor quite a while already we are not very satisfied with the qualityof the packages-feed. To address this, we decided to do a fresh starton GitHub. The new feed https://github.com/openwrt/packages should beused from now on and package maintainers are asked to move theirpackages there. For the final release we will still build the oldpackages feed but it will be necessary to enable it manually in theopkg package list to be usable.

Additionally we would like to give a big thank you to all of our packagemaintainers working on our various feeds.

New build serversWe would like to express our gratitude to Imagination Technology forfunding the 2 build servers that we used for the release.

Whats next ?We aim at releasing Chaos Calmer (CC) before the end of the year. TheCC release will use 3.14 or a newer LTS kernel as baseline.

The "Wireless Battle of the Mesh" is an event that aims to bring together people from across the globe to test the performance of different routing protocols for ad-hoc networks, like Babel, B.A.T.M.A.N., BMX, OLSR, and 802.11s.

Many developers and community networkers will join the event to hack, test, discuss, explain and learn.

If you are interested in dynamic routing protocols or wireless community networks you can't miss this event!

The battlemesh is free of charge and open for all, every year we strive to keep participation costs low by negotiating deals for accommodation and food.

This year the event will take place from Monday 12th to Sunday 18th of May 2014 in Leipzig, Germany at the Sublab, a very cool local hackerspace.

OpenWrt.org both support and endorses Battle of the Mesh and the multiple communities involved in the event.

The BattleMesh organizers have announced the 'Battle of the Mesh version 5', which will be held in Athens, Greece. BattleMesh is a technical tournament with an overwhelming social character. If you are a mesh networking enthusiast, community networking activist, or have an interest in mesh networks you might find this gathering highly interesting. This event is an opportunity to meet developers from the most popular open source mesh protocol implementations, such as B.A.T.M.A.N, OLSR, Babel, BMX and L3 and L2.

The BattleMeshV5 will be held in Athens, Greece from the 26th of March until 1th of April. The testing / hacking / talks will take place in the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). A large room that can accommodate 100 persons has been reserved for the BattleMesh participants. To this comes space for workshops, hacking sessions and a long list of social activities.

There is further organized a BattleMeshV5 Warmup which will be held during the weekend of 23rd - 25th of March in the mountain village of Sarantaporo. Sarantaporo is a small mountain village, situated at an altitude of 840m, opposite Olympus mountain, in the prefecture of Larisa, not far from Athens. It’s permanent population is about 900 inhabitants and their main activities are agriculture, farming and surfing the web!

OpenWrt has in collaboration with FreeWear.org launched the first series of official OpenWrt merchandise. It is a modest beginning, but more will come in due time. FreeWear.org handles production and distribution and each item sold includes a 3 Euro donation which goes directly to OpenWrt. Further information is found on the www.freewear.org website.